In personal communications systems such as cell phones, low cost, high performance and reliability are important and ongoing goals. To reduce costs in such modern communications devices, there is a trend to convert analog circuits into digital architectures that can be more easily implemented in integrated circuit chips and/or in embedded circuit devices and to integrate previously discrete devices. To make and operate a low cost communications device, some components are stressed up to and beyond normal operation parameters for brief periods of time. Over time, an accumulation of stress applied to the components can slowly cause progressive degradation of the components and result in eventual failure to meet a desired component or system specification. However, if this stress can be accurately tested and modeled over time and environmental conditions such as temperature, an acceptable level of component or system performance and reliability can still be achieved despite the stress beyond normal operational parameters.
One communications area where such stress testing and modeling is particularly difficult is in the radio frequency (RF) section of a digital transceiver. It can be very difficult to mimic stresses to the RF section of an integrated circuit, these tests are often expensive and time consuming to perform, and it can be difficult to characterize the stress conditions.
Accordingly, there is a need in the electronics industry to provide a testing methodology and test structure suitable to test, characterize, model and  accurately predict the performance of select RF components or systems of a communications device, in order to maintain low cost, high performance and reliability of the device.